For Elian's Miami relatives, not even a call

MIAMI -- They had hoped for one last meeting with Elián. In the end, they didn't even get a phone call.

After the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear the case of Elián's Miami relatives, an Immigration and Naturalization Service agent contacted Lázaro González, the great uncle who fought to keep the boy here, saying Elián's father wanted a phone number where he could call him. But the hours came and went and Elián got on a private jet and left without calling them.

Armando Gutierrez, the family's spokesman, said the family clung to hope that the boy might call after he arrived in Cuba.

"I guess the Cuban government wants to record it," Gutierrez said.

The family had gathered at their old house in Little Havana Wednesday morning to await the Supreme Court decision. Unlike the old days when Elián was among them, the family avoided the public eye and shortly before 11 a.m. they left the house with Gutierrez without mingling with their supporters, as they used to do.

They went to the Hermita de la Caridad del Cobre, the Catholic Cuban community's most revered shrine and home to Cuba's patron saint, where they hung out by Biscayne Bay and then went inside, Gutierrez said. That is when they got the news.

"We went to the church and when we were inside that is when we got the news. It was a reaction of shock and disbelief. Up on to the last minute they were hoping that Juan Miguel would seek asylum."

Outside, Mike Tobin, a reporter from WSVN-Ch. 7, had caught up with them. At first Lázaro González, his daughter, Marisleysis, and a nephew did not notice the reporter and headed toward the edge of the bay. But when Lázaro González noticed the crew filming them, he headed toward the camera and tried to force the cameraman to shut it off. Then he tried to start a scuffle with the reporter, but his daughter got in between them.

"At this point they are asking (the media) to respect their privacy," Gutierrez said later.

Back in the days when the González's home was the center of a massive media encampment, Marisleysis González bolted out of her home to the CNN tent to tell her side as guests in a talk show criticized her family and the Cuban-American community.

But in the days following the April 22 raid in which federal agents took Elián, the family started shunning the spotlight they had used for months to get their message across.

And on Wednesday, during what was probably the last major press conference of the Elián saga, none of the family members were present.

Instead, their legal team and their spokesman came on their behalf to convey to the media the family's feelings on the day Elián boarded a private jet and headed back to the island he had left on a rickety boat seven months before with his mother.

"They are suffering a lot; they are going through a lot of pain," Gutierrez said.

José Dante Parra Herrera can be reached at jparra@sun-sentinel.com or at 305-810-5005.